Thursday, September 05, 2013

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 6 September - 12 September 2013

If you've seen everything in theaters and are looking for something new, you are not getting a lot of choices.

  • At the multiplexes, you're basically looking at Riddick, the third movie featuring Vin Diesel as the title character - an interstellar convict who has eyes that let him see in the dark - which promises to be more of a throwback to the monster-fighting of Pitch Black than the more ambitious but also more uneven Chronicles of Riddick. Diesel and writer/director David Twohy have been trying to make this movie for years, and I hope it pays off for them (and audiences). It's at the Capitol, Apple, Fenway (including RPX), Boston Common (including Imax), and Jordan's Furniture.

    There are some other options: This Is the End has a quick pre-video re-release at Boston Common and Apple, and the surprisingly successful Instructions Not Included adds a screen at Fenway to the one it has at Boston Common. And if you want to head out to Reading, they have The Ultimate Life, which appears to be a sequel to 2006's The Ultimate Gift, although with only a handful of supporting cast returning. Apparently both were based on best-selling novels, and this one has the protagonist of the first story learning about the grandfather who bequeathed a fortune and charitable foundation to him. Drew Waters gets to be compared to James Garner; Peter Fonda shows up in a supporting role. Boston Common has a single screening of Out of the Clear Blue Sky on Wednesday (it's a documentary on a business devastated by the September 11th attack), and Fenway has a repeat of the RiffTrax folks attaching themselves to Starship Troopers like parasites. Both 'plexes are planning Insidious double features on Thursday as the sequel opens.
  • There's even less turnover at Kendall Square, which swaps out last week's one-week booking for Terraferma, in which a Sicilian family takes in a pair of drowning illegal immigrants while trying to decide whether to continue their traditional way of life as fishermen.
  • You think that's very little turnover? The Coolidge opens Hell Baby, but it's playing midnights in the screening room onFriday and Saturday and then 10pm shows on the Goldscreen from Sunday to Thursday. I missed it at Fantasia, but it features Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb as an expectant couple in a spoof of antichrist movies. In other weekend midnights, they start a month of "so bad it's great" with the first movie of the The Fast and the Furious franchise in the main theater for those who can't get enough Vin Diesel on Friday & Saturday, while bringing The Room out on the upstairs screen on Saturday. On Monday, they have a "special screening" of The Departed, apparently to celebrate the permanent incarceration of Whitey Bulger. They also have their first Boston Open Screen night on Thursday, where anyone can bring some video to show in the screening room in a sort of movie open-mic night.
  • The Brattle Theatre has the Boston Comedy Arts Festival on Friday and Saturday, but starts another Recent Raves series on Sunday. That day has a double feature of The Kings of Summer (35mm) and Prince Avalanche; the rest is single features - Only God Forgives (35mm) on Monday,The Bling Ring on Tuesday, and The Act of Killing on Thursday. Not quite a part of that series is Vanyaland's co-presentation of Morrissey 25 Live, celebrating the Smiths frontman's twenty-five years as a solo artist.
  • Morrisey 25 Live actually plays The Regent Theatre first, on Sunday the 8th. They also have a screening of another music-oriented film, The Harder They Come with Jimmy Cliff, on Friday the 6th. And, on Tuesday, they've got a Gathr Preview Series screening, And While We Were Here, which stars Kate Bosworth as a writer on a beautiful Italian island recovering from a broken heart but apparently finding forbidden love.
  • Plenty more Complete Alfred Hitchcock at the Harvard Film Archive: Comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith at 7pm Friday, horror classic The Birds at 9pm, final movie Family Plot at 9:30pm Saturday, Under Capricorn at 4:30pm on Sunday, and the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much at 7pm Monday. In between, they wrap up the Burt Lancaster Centennial with John Casseavetes's A Child Is Waiting at 7pm onSaturday and Judgment at Nuremberg at the same time Sunday.
  • The MFA's film program continues a couple of things that started earlier in the week: Rock-doc Ain't in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm plays at various times on all the days the museum is showing films (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday). They also continue their Matías Piñeiro retrospective with The Stolen Man on Saturday & Sunday and his most recent, the Twelfth Night-inspired mystery Viola on Wednesday and Thursday, continuing into next week. They (along with the Boston LGBT Film Festival) also have a 35mm print of 1967's Portrait of Jason, in which Jason Holliday tells stories on stage. It's also playing Wednesday and Thursday and continuing on.
  • ArtsEmerson seems to be starting screenings up again with the new school year, although it doesn't seem like a cohesive program (or even all show up in their system). Friday & Saturday evening, they have Truth in Translation as part of the Global Arts Project, which follows a group of South African actors as they dramatize stories from the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. Sunday afternoon features Hare Rama Hare Krishna, a Bollywood film from 1971 about a Montreal family that falls apart against the background of the Hare Krishna movement.
  • Somehow, I never realized that iMovieCafe were the new owners of Apple Cinemas. They've got plenty of things in various languages playing this week, including Zanjeer, a new remake of a 1973 Bollywood movie with Ram Charan stepping into the role that first made Amitabh Bachchan famous, falsely-imprisoned honest cop Viay Khanna, with Priyanka Chopra as the love interest. Chennai Express, Madras Express, Satyagraha (all Hindi with English subtitles) play at various times, with Telugu-language Thoofan and Tamil-language Varutha Padatha Valibar Sangam also worked in.
  • Second-run shuffling this week has the Somerville Theatre picking up The Spectacular Now, bumping Jobs to The Capitol.


My plans? Riddick, the Gathr preview, maybe Hell Baby, and some Hitchcock.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

There's no patience for Vin Diesel. Other options seem viable.

Anonymous said...

SHORT TERM 12 for certain. Superb drama.